7 ms·

So, if you aren't a fan of testing as a way to measure and improve teacher effectiveness, please find an alternative that works better. Just not having any metr

by Bud 14y ago

So, if you aren't a fan of testing as a way to measure and improve teacher effectiveness, please find an alternative that works better. Just not having any metric at all is far worse than the imperfect tests we have. This is a gigantic assumption which you have tossed out there without any support whatsoever. You are basically making an assumption which encompasses the entire issue in question, and then just blithely assuming you are correct. In fact, the evidence which is staring us in the face indicates that you are not correct, and that we were far better off before we decided to let No Child Left Behind and a group of for-profit "education" companies co-opt our system and turn it into a giant standardized-test machine. You want an alternative that works better? No problem. Go back to doing things the way we did them before January 2001. By the way, this would emphatically NOT mean that we had "no metric at all", of course...we had testing before 2001. We just didn't structure our entire system around constant standardized testing and force teachers to teach to those tests, that's all. We also had other metrics, such as observing how students do in college.

yummyfajitas 14y ago
What evidence do you have that things were better before 2001?
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  For anyone that knows anything about the current system, its almost obvious. Education in the states is much more of a wreck now than it was BB (Before Bush). The only thing kids have improved at now is....taking standardized tests.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    tl;dr No evidence but I hate Bush SOOOO MUCH!
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      If you have kids, do you really want them to be educated in fill-in-the-bubble hell? Because that is how school is these days, teachers don't teach, they do test prep and then administer those tests, and the testing companies have gotten rich in basically a corrupt cycle. Read the linked article for crying out loud. Also, NCLB passed with bipartisan support at the beginning of Bush's term, it wasn't his fault, but it was symptomatic of the simplistic shallow thinking that he would use the rest of his term. States are finally able to opt out, thank god, and you can bet I will make sure my kids are educated in one of those states.
      - Locke1689 14y ago
        This is crazy. If you have another metric for student performance other than test scores, just say it.
        asveikau 14y ago
        I'm not certain he had another metric in mind, but it seemed plausible that he may be suggesting that test score performance did not actually increase after No Child Left Behind, or that an increased emphasis on test scores in the last decade had not had a positive measurable impact, even on an imperfect measure like test scores. I don't know what the actual data say but it seems like that was the avenue he was going down.
        lutorm 14y ago
        We do have another metric: The teachers', who spend 5 days a week with the kids, knowledge. They have a dataset infinitely deeper and more multi-dimensional than a standardized test can give. Of course, it doesn't lend itself well to making graphs, but that's the nature of complex data.
        yummyfajitas 14y ago
        The subjective opinions of a teacher are not a metric, they are merely a noisy data set. They are also nearly worthless scientifically - they are incomparable (how do you compare the opinion of teacher A to that of teacher B) and non-reproducible (how can one repeat an observation).
- MattGrommes 14y ago
  Talk to any teacher or administrator who gives a shit about their students and were teaching before 2001. I come from a family of teachers and school administration and they all point to NCLB as a huge turning point downward in education. Even the ones who favor more standardized testing as a way of finding teachers who aren't up to snuff say the test score has to be one input to the equation, not the only thing. Making the test score all-important skews teaching the same way making one metric in business all-important skews the business toward that metric.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- rhizome 14y ago
  You're referring to a value judgement, right?
brownbat 14y ago
Huh, I read it as "what is that way to measure school quality absent standardized tests?" While I think you read it as "What's a better way to run schools?" Your answer, roll back to before NCLB. That could be true, but we still wouldn't have an answer to the other question. Absent standardized tests, how can we measure school quality? Hopefully something slightly more rigorous than testimonials from stakeholders... (ie, teachers claiming they like or dislike their school). If there's a better way to get some standardized measure of student / teacher performance, I'm curious to hear it. I'm not pro-test, I just don't know the alternative metrics advocated by the anti-test community.
Semaphor 14y ago
Same here in Germany. We got more and more standardized tests and curricula (it mostly started after I left school) and the teachers I really respected seemed to become more and more disillusioned and annoyed by the changes. My personal opinion is that good teachers make bad politicians and thus bad teachers (or even better, people who never were teachers) make the rules.

by Bud 14y ago

yummyfajitas 14y ago

What evidence do you have that things were better before 2001?

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
For anyone that knows anything about the current system, its almost obvious. Education in the states is much more of a wreck now than it was BB (Before Bush). The only thing kids have improved at now is....taking standardized tests.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  tl;dr No evidence but I hate Bush SOOOO MUCH!
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    If you have kids, do you really want them to be educated in fill-in-the-bubble hell? Because that is how school is these days, teachers don't teach, they do test prep and then administer those tests, and the testing companies have gotten rich in basically a corrupt cycle. Read the linked article for crying out loud. Also, NCLB passed with bipartisan support at the beginning of Bush's term, it wasn't his fault, but it was symptomatic of the simplistic shallow thinking that he would use the rest of his term. States are finally able to opt out, thank god, and you can bet I will make sure my kids are educated in one of those states.
    - Locke1689 14y ago
      This is crazy. If you have another metric for student performance other than test scores, just say it.
      - asveikau 14y ago
        I'm not certain he had another metric in mind, but it seemed plausible that he may be suggesting that test score performance did not actually increase after No Child Left Behind, or that an increased emphasis on test scores in the last decade had not had a positive measurable impact, even on an imperfect measure like test scores. I don't know what the actual data say but it seems like that was the avenue he was going down.
      - lutorm 14y ago
        We do have another metric: The teachers', who spend 5 days a week with the kids, knowledge. They have a dataset infinitely deeper and more multi-dimensional than a standardized test can give. Of course, it doesn't lend itself well to making graphs, but that's the nature of complex data.
        yummyfajitas 14y ago
        The subjective opinions of a teacher are not a metric, they are merely a noisy data set. They are also nearly worthless scientifically - they are incomparable (how do you compare the opinion of teacher A to that of teacher B) and non-reproducible (how can one repeat an observation).
MattGrommes 14y ago
Talk to any teacher or administrator who gives a shit about their students and were teaching before 2001. I come from a family of teachers and school administration and they all point to NCLB as a huge turning point downward in education. Even the ones who favor more standardized testing as a way of finding teachers who aren't up to snuff say the test score has to be one input to the equation, not the only thing. Making the test score all-important skews teaching the same way making one metric in business all-important skews the business toward that metric.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
rhizome 14y ago
You're referring to a value judgement, right?

brownbat 14y ago

Huh, I read it as "what is that way to measure school quality absent standardized tests?" While I think you read it as "What's a better way to run schools?" Your answer, roll back to before NCLB. That could be true, but we still wouldn't have an answer to the other question. Absent standardized tests, how can we measure school quality? Hopefully something slightly more rigorous than testimonials from stakeholders... (ie, teachers claiming they like or dislike their school). If there's a better way to get some standardized measure of student / teacher performance, I'm curious to hear it. I'm not pro-test, I just don't know the alternative metrics advocated by the anti-test community.

Semaphor 14y ago

Same here in Germany. We got more and more standardized tests and curricula (it mostly started after I left school) and the teachers I really respected seemed to become more and more disillusioned and annoyed by the changes. My personal opinion is that good teachers make bad politicians and thus bad teachers (or even better, people who never were teachers) make the rules.